


Wherever There Is You

by BeesKnees



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Annie-Centric, Canon Compliant, F/M, Psychological Torture, Victors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 05:05:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4422503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeesKnees/pseuds/BeesKnees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Annie Cresta in the Capitol. </p>
<p>(Snow wants them alone and vulnerable. But she will love Finnick in spite of that.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wherever There Is You

Finnick has to fight to open his eyes. He feels weighted down, his body aware of the pain it's in before his mind; it resists him, tries to keep him unconscious, but he pushes through all the same. 

He doesn't know where he is.

He blinks up at the stretch of metal above him, but it doesn't tell him anything. He looks to his side and only then does he see Katniss. Unconscious and still in the wetsuit that they had been given for the Quarter Quell. He looks down at himself and sees that he's wearing it as well. Burnt, in places, from where the lightning had hit him – the lightning – 

Finnick manages to push himself up into a sitting position, ignoring the pain that lances through his veins.

“Hey, hey.” Haymitch appears in front of him, puts a hand on his shoulder and tries to press him back down. Finnick doesn't go down willingly, twists about trying to see who else is in the plane with them. (Beetee, also unconscious.) 

He looks up at Haymitch and tries to ask, but the words are hidden from him. His mind feels thinly veiled in a cloud of fog, and his words are elusive, somewhere lost in there. They hover above his tongue, but refuse to be named. The sensation is overwhelming and terrifying at the same time; _what is wrong with him_? But he is a secondary concern.

“Annie?” he finally gets out and only then does he go back down against the makeshift bed. 

Haymitch tries to hide his reaction, but Finnick, tired and hurt as he is, is too good at reading people. He sees the flash of grief on his face, the way his eyes hurriedly flit away from Finnick's. But no, no, what does that mean? Because this was the only thing he had asked for, his only stipulation for getting Katniss onto this plane, and here she is, so where is Annie? 

“Annie?” Finnick says again, and it's the only word he can get out, the only one his head and heart can remember and he says it with fear; he says it as if it's a prayer and absolution can be granted if only he says it loudly enough. He can conjure her out of the air with it. 

He sits up again. (The world tilts strangely around him.) He fumbles with the IV in his arm, his fingers thick, unyielding. 

“Finnick.” Plutarch appears next, and he's the last person Finnick wants to see. (He wants Mags. He wants Johanna. He wants _Annie_. He wants someone who isn't interested in using him for two seconds, someone who actually cares about him – and all of these people he fought for, the only reason he committed to coming out of the Quarter Quell alive, none of them are here right now. And it's his fault, isn't it? He shouldn't have agreed. He should have known better.)

“Where is she?” Finnick begs. (This is why they drug victors after they come out of the arena, because they are shell-shocked and hysterical. Finnick would make any deal, trade the world away, for Plutarch to say they are on their way to get her.)

“I need you to rest,” Plutarch says and he also places a hold against Finnick's shoulder, his touch more commanding than Haymitch's. “We don't know what the damage to your heart or nervous system might be--”

“ _Where is she_?” Finnick asks.

They finally stop fighting him, just stand there. 

“We don't—” Plutarch starts to say.

“An aircraft radioed out of Four right after the Quell ended sayin' they'd pick her up,” Haymitch says bluntly. 

Finnick stares up at him. The words are gone again, and his brain can't even string together what it is Haymitch has told him. That's all impossible. Because she's supposed to be right here. She's supposed to be safe. She was the one the Capitol had never cared about. She wasn't picked for the Quell. She stayed back home. She was never supposed to be in real danger. 

“He won't kill her,” Haymitch says quietly. Finnick's body goes numb with creeping horror. Is that supposed to be a comfort or not? He doesn't know. He doesn't even know if Haymitch knows; no, Snow won't kill her, not as long as she can be used to hurt and punish Finnick. He won't kill her as long as he can destroy them inch by bloody inch. 

Something cold hits his bloodstream. Belatedly, he turns to look at where Plutarch is swiftly pulling a needle out of the IV hooked into Finnick's arm.

“You need to rest,” Plutarch says again, helping Finnick sit back. He's too weak to fight. He's presented with the metal roofing of the plane again. The last thing he feels is tears streaking down his cheeks. The oblivion that follows is easy.

…

Her hands are shaking, so she presses them tightly together so that no one sees. (Does anyone care? She doesn't think so, but she doesn't want to show anymore weakness than she already has. She is scared. She is scared in a way that she forgot it is possible to be. Her whole life, since the Hunger Games, has existed on a baseline of fear, but this is different. This is different, because she is in real danger and she doesn't know where Finnick is. She had seen him run toward Katniss, shouting and racing with a loose-limbed desperation before the lightning hit him and the world went dark. She had pressed her hands up against the particles of light from the projector, willing him back into being. _Where was he? Where had he gone_?)

They take her down into the basement of the training center. She's never been here before, but there are too many locked doors. She is being buried. It is an effort not to simply fall to her knees and cry. She keeps blinking away tears. 

She sees what she isn't supposed to. Peeta, also being escorted into his own cell, disoriented and maybe drugged. But he turns to look at her, his eyes intent. (He doesn't know her though; how could he? She wants to say, _I am with Finnick_ , but it is safer for both of them if those words to remain in her chest.) 

She doesn't need to see Johanna. She hears her, shrieking a clarion call, as if every noise she makes will unmake the world in turn. (Annie can't resist shivering. She remembers the jabberjays, the ones with her voice, crying, crying for Finnick. She had wept in front of the project, _No, no, Finnick, that's not me. I'm here. I'm here_ , until Finnick's family found her and picked her up and took her away from the images – and still she had cried, because she needed to see him in order to know that he was still alive. They were using her against him and he didn't know that she was safe. As safe as they ever were.) 

The cell clicks shut behind her. Annie glances around and then presses herself against the back wall. She slides down, tucks her knees tight against her chest. She listens to Johanna scream and curse and fight. She listens to the sound of bodies hitting the walls, and she suspects that nearly every blow is taken by Johanna. She has just come out of the Hunger Games and still has a terrifying amount of energy. 

She is brave enough for all three of them, but Annie can be brave too. She curls her hands into tight fists against her knees. 

Finally, the room grows quiet. The door slams shut behind Johanna. The absence of sound stings at Annie's ears. 

“Johanna,” Annie says softly.

“Annie?” Johanna asks hoarsely. Johanna laughs, the sound a bit crazed, as if the last person she expected to wind up next to is Annie Cresta. (Annie doesn't know what that says about her, if it's supposed to be a sign of how scarcely interested the Capitol is in her or if it's because she and Finnick are so dedicated to protecting each other.)

“Johanna, where's Finnick?” Annie makes herself say the words, even though she's painfully afraid of what the answer might be. (He can be anywhere right now. He can be safe. He can even be back in Four. She doesn't believe that part, not really. Finnick Odair is either dead or somewhere in the Capitol.) 

“I don't know,” Johanna answers. 

“Is he alive?” Annie asks, and she can't stop the way her voice cracks as she asks it.

“I don't know,” Johanna repeats. (And Annie can't pretend to be brave anymore. She presses her head against the wall, the one Johanna is on the other side of, and starts to cry in earnest. The sobs wrack her chest and still she can't stop them. She knows that Snow will be pleased with the pain he's caused her, but she mourns Finnick all the same.)

“Who is that?” Peeta asks on the other side of her. He sounds exhausted, disoriented. 

“Annie Cresta,” Johanna calls over to Peeta. 

“Annie, are you okay?” Peeta asks. The words, simple as they are, are so steeped in kindness that Annie stops crying. She nods to herself, slows her breathing. She is okay. She will be okay.

“Yes,” she answers. She is about to ask Peeta if he is okay when the door to her cell swings open. Her hand tightens against the wall, as if she can cling to Johanna through it. Snow appears in front of her. Her heart misses a beat at the sight of him. (He will pretend to be your friend, she hears Finnick say in the back of her mind. But do not trust him.)

“Miss Cresta,” Snow says, smiling eerily. “How are you?”

She nods, not trusting her voice. It's not an answer, but he's not really asking the question, so it's all the same. 

“Where is he?” Annie asks, because that's the only question that really matters between the two of them: Finnick hangs in the balance. She is a victor in her own right – one who has irritated the Capitol by not being what they want of their shining children, but she knows that's not why she's here. She's here because of Finnick. 

“He's been gravely injured, you know,” Snow says. (He's still alive, Annie thinks. Unless Snow is lying. But why that lie, if he's not? She tries to focus enough to think, but she doesn't have enough of the pieces to even begin to put this puzzle together. So she just waits for Snow to keep talking, to tell her what he wants from her.)

“It's nothing we can't handle,” Snow continues seamlessly. “But if I return him to you, I expect something in return. I need payment for his life.” 

Payment? Her mind leaps to money at first, but doesn't stay there long. If only he just meant money. They have that. But money is rarely the currency of choice in the Capitol. Finnick has taught her that. She is afraid of what he will ask for, because she doesn't know if she can refuse it. 

“Your lover,” he says that word mockingly, “was conspiring with rebels. I want to know more about the people he was working with. If you tell me, I can save his life. You two can go home. I will pardon you both.” 

Rebels? She has no idea what Snow is talking about. What was Finnick doing during the Quarter Quell? Is Snow telling the truth? It doesn't matter, does it, because Snow has named his price for her seeing Finnick again, and Annie can't pay it. She doesn't know who Snow is talking about.

“Let me see him,” Annie tries to negotiate. If she can just _see_ Finnick, they can sort this out, she's sure of it. (Or, at the least, brave this together. They said their good-byes back in Four, because neither of them were certain if he was really going to come home from the Quarter Quell, but knowing that he's alive out there, somewhere, she needs to see him again. Those kisses aren't enough to tide her over for the rest of her life.) 

Snow just looks at her. He backs up out of the cell, and the door closes again. Annie's heart flutters painfully. _Oh God_ , she thinks. _Did I just lose him_?

The three of them are left alone throughout the night, waiting to see what Snow will do with them, waiting to see what Snow will tell them.

Annie falls asleep, curled against the wall. She wakes up to the sound of Johanna screaming again. The sound oscillates, moving between being abrasive, too loud, to submerged and distant as Johanna is plunged into water. Annie can hear the sound of it, splashing, hitting the floor, seeping underneath the thin line of their wall. Strange, isn't it, that this is the same thing as what makes up her ocean, and the same thing that nearly drowned her in her own games. They keep asking Johanna about the rebels, about District 13 (District 13?) but Johanna never answers them. She snaps out insults and she curses at them and when her words give out, she just screams. When her voice gives out, the clatter grows louder, and Annie imagines Johanna's feet and hands scrabbling over the floor.

Only when they stop torturing Johanna does Snow come back to Annie. She presses herself more firmly against the wall, because she is certain they will dunk her too (she will be back in that water, just like in the arena, which is not like the ocean, but is a dead thing. It pushes into her lungs and claws at them, and it is darkness itself, the taste metallic and chemical, and she cannot do that again. She cannot fight that like Johanna can).

“He's dying,” Snow says, and Annie fights with herself. She presses her nails into her palms and focuses on that sensation. She stares into Snow's face and looks for where she might be able to tell that he's lying, and she doesn't think of Finnick somewhere in this building, floors up, his body giving out on him. (The only thing that saves her against this is that doesn't have what Snow wants anyway. She has nothing to trade for Finnick.)

“I don't know anything,” Annie says. Her voice is barely more than a whisper, but it doesn't waver.

“Do you know what lightning of that strength can do to the human heart?” Snow says, and he almost smiles. “Of course, you do. You saw what happened to Peeta Mellark, didn't you, Miss Cresta? Finnick needs a surgery to fix his heart from that damage. He's going to die otherwise, and it will be slow. He'll feel that weakness start to spread through his body, the thump of his heart giving out. Do you want that?”

Annie shakes her head, presses her knuckles against her mouth. (He's lying. Isn't he? If she and Johanna and Peeta are down here, why separate Finnick? Where are Katniss Everdeen and Beetee Latier? Somehow, some of them got out, and Finnick has to be with them, doesn't he?) 

“You can save him,” Snow says again. “Tell me what he knew.”

“I don't know anything,” Annie whispers again. 

… 

He leaves her alone the next day. Johanna screams beside her, an unending litany. (Peeta disappears for hours that day. When Annie slides over to his wall and asks him what happened, he pauses too long and then says, “I don't know.”)

…

When she wakes up next, in her room is a projector, the same kind they put in the homes in Victors' Village so they would have to watch announcements from Snow and the Hunger Games. Annie looks at it with a certain amount of trepidation, because she has never seen anything good shown on one of these. She stays away from it, but it doesn't matter. The screen lights up anyway.

It takes her a few moments to figure out what she is looking at. This image lacks the precision of Snow's broadcasts. But she knows that face as soon as it appears. Finnick. He is years younger, with that coltish look that he had come out of the games with. It is strange to see him done in inverse, shorter, his back and arms nowhere near as broad as they have became. His hair just a touch messy, not yet refined. But still with that air that drew people to him. There was something beautiful about being near him, something warm and comforting, as if you had just become the focus of a small sun, and that was apparent even at the age he is at now – even to those who had only see him in the Hunger Games, through the lens while he was grappling to survive. 

And it is apparent now. (There's a flush along his cheekbones, making his eyes appear brighter.) She wants to reach for him, to feel her fingers trace along the straight line of his nose – he would have caught her hand, would have smiled wryly at her, kissed her fingertips. His looks, after all these years, seemed to be something of a joke to him – as if he still couldn't believe that the Capitol had actually bought this con, that the value of his life was determined on how beautiful he was or even the promise of how beautiful he would become.

Her study of Finnick's appearance doesn't last long though, because in the next frame, a woman steps toward him. Annie's eyes widen, her back straightens, as the woman catches him around the back of his neck, kisses him in a way that is forceful and passionate, and Finnick, young as he is, tries to find his own footing in it. He works his way into the kiss, his hands hovering, as if he doesn't know where to touch her. (And how should he know? The woman is obviously from the Capitol, garnished in a dress with a voluminous skirt, as if the fabric is intent on swallowing Finnick alive.) 

She pulls away from him, momentarily, her gaze appraising. She presses her thumb to his lower lip, where some of her lipstick is smeared. He smiles at her, a command performance – he wants to please her, but Annie can see the touch of nervousness there, an emotion that is almost foreign on Finnick Odair's face, and she's certain she has never seen it at all in all the times he's been in the Capitol.

She tugs him into the next room, a bedroom. Annie knows where this is going from a mile off, but her brain has stalled out. She can't pull herself away from the screen, although she knows she should. She should shut her eyes, cover her ears. She doesn't need to see this. She doesn't have to.

But she does all the same. 

The woman undresses Finnick with a hungry reverence, her eyes raking liberally over every inch of bared skin. (With that ridiculous suit gone, he somehow looks younger. She knows his body. She wants to reach out and cover him back up, to hide this young version of Finnick away; she wants to protect him.) But he slips forward anyway, and then they're on the bed. The woman gives him the occasional verbal direction, but mostly rearranges him how she pleases and he complies without hesitation. By the time Finnick actually slides into her, Annie is crying, her face in her hands. She can still hear them, those little sounds that Finnick makes that she's heard so many times before, that she likes to coax out of him, that she has felt huffed against her neck as she pushes her fingers through his hair.)

She has wondered before what Finnick's first time would have been like. She had never dared asked if it had been in the Capitol, but she understood the answer was, yes, of course. She had thought it would be more definitively evil. She had thought that Finnick would have clearly not wanted it, been disturbed by what he was asked to do. The power balance is clear here, but Finnick's inclination to please is obvious as well. She doesn't want him to have been hurt in his first time, but she doesn't want this either. 

…

(Something is happening to Peeta. She tries to talk to him, but his answers are slow. He trails off in the middle of sentences. His dreams become unsettled. He cries out for Katniss; he cries out her name in fear; he cries out her name in pain. No matter what he is dreaming, all he ever says is Katniss' name. If Peeta still exists inside of himself, he is starting to become eclipsed.

Annie knows what this is like.

She is afraid they will drown her, like they drown Johanna. She is afraid they will erase Finnick from her, like they erase Katniss from Peeta.

But mostly she is afraid of what the next video will show. Out of all of her fears, that is the only one that will certainly come true.)

…

The days become thin and nebulous. She sleeps. She wakes. The guards come. Snow does not. Johanna doesn't scream anymore, because she doesn't have a voice anymore. Peeta screams now, rages over _Katniss, Katniss, Katniss_ , and Annie tries to tell him that she isn't here either, but Peeta doesn't hear her anymore. 

Each day, besides, it's harder to hear anything over the sound of Finnick: She sees him in clubs and bars, constantly drinking and swallowing down multicolored pills and taking bumps of powder out of backrooms and in the bathrooms; he's always being touched, people tracing their fingers over his arms and pressing a hand over his heart, letting their touch slip too low over his side, lingering over his hips; she's seen him fuck in these clubs and she's seen him fuck in every bedroom in the Capitol and on rugs and over desks and on kitchen counters. He smiles no matter what he's doing, his fingers inside somebody, his mouth on a thigh; she's seen him tied up and forced down and beaten raw. His moans of pain are precariously close to those of pleasure, and she has trouble distinguishing between the two now. She's heard him in genuine pain though, too, and that is always clear, intentionally the aim. She's seen his shoulders pop out of their sockets, seen his nose break, his eyes bloom with black. She's seen his ribs bruise, the sight of them clear through the rest of his purpled skin. She's seen his wrists and ankles raw with rope burn. How many times has he come back to her after something like this, acting as if everything was the same? Wrapping an arm around her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head while he's trying to fight back the wince of the still-there pain even if the marks have been erased? How foolish has she been?

She goes to sleep to him with a married couple who has bought him, him inside of the wife, the husband inside of Finnick. She wakes up to him strung up from a ceiling, being beaten with the end of a riding crop, grinning over his shoulder in encouragement. 

Sometimes, the times that scare her the most, make her heart stop still as soon as she realizes the thought that has formed: Does he enjoy any of this? Where does the act end and where does Finnick begin? And she hates herself for these moments (when Snow is successfully in her head), because it doesn't matter if he enjoys any of it, because he didn't choose it, and she should be grateful for any moment that isn't a genuine hell for him. 

And some of them seem like they might not be genuine hells. Some of his clients try to be kind to him – think they might be actual friends, and there are ones Finnick does seem to get along with, on a certain level. They appear in repetition, buying him three or four times. 

She goes to sleep to him hitting Cashmere with the flat of his hand, leaving her skin red and mottled. 

She wakes up to the sound of him coming, gasping low in his throat. 

“I love you,” he whispers.

Annie's eyes shoot open, because that is something he has never said before. (He has all manner of nicknames for the people he spends time with: _honey, sugar, darling_ , and it makes him calling her just _Annie_ and nothing else seem all the more important.) 

And there she is, smiling from underneath him, her hand pressed against his cheek. Horror unfurls in her chest. _She hadn't been able to tell this was them_. It had just been another scene in this unending loop. 

“I'm not a client,” Annie says out loud before she can stop herself. Her voice goes high and hysterical. She instantly presses her shaking hands over her mouth even as the scene in front of her dissolves, going to the next instance as if she hasn't said anything at all. 

(She needs to insist she's different. Finnick chose her. Finnick loves her. She doesn't make him _do these things_. But what does it say about them that she has to defend the differences?) She presses her hands over her ears and tries to drown out the sound of Finnick on the video (in pain), Johanna hissing in her maimed voice as they push her into another bucket of water, and Peeta shouting at Katniss. She yearns for the silence that buzzes in the palms of her hands, elusive. Instead, her own cries become amplified. 

…

Two guards come and pick her up. This is hardly necessary. She has become so thin that one of them could easily do it. She is too surprised by this turn of events to even think of fighting. She sees a flash of Peeta as she walks by. They walk her up to the the first floor of the tribute center and she is tucked into a room.

“We need you to change, Miss Cresta,” one of the guards says with measured patience as he closes the door behind her. She looks around, bewildered. A dress is laid out on the bed. She walks toward it, unsteadily. (She's not sure her legs will support her for a moment, but they do.) Her hands hover above the fabric and she looks toward the windows. Could she escape from here? (It's a dulled thought, she'll admit. She already knows the answer: No. Snow would have not allowed her to be alone in this room if she could. And even if she managed to get out the window and onto the street, where would she go? She doesn't have a single friend in the Capitol. She can't risk going back to Four, not when her family and Finnick's are already in so much danger. She has no way of contacting Finnick. Up until this moment she hadn't realized how far her cell really stretches. She sinks down to the floor, gives up on holding herself up. She presses her face into the fabric of the dress, which smells clean at least, with only a touch too much of perfume.)

It's the first moment in hours that she hasn't been assaulted by images of Finnick. It's almost strange to feel that keening longing for him again – where is he? Is he all right? (Is he coming for her?) She doesn't know. She doesn't know anything. 

A knock sounds at the door and Annie jumps. Hands shaking, she reaches hastily for the dress, tugging off the dirty clothes she's still wearing. The dress is fine, but not ostentatious. Regardless, she feels out of place and ridiculous in it. It's a lovely seafoam green with only one shoulder strap. The bodice is stitched with sequins, the skirt part loose. (That she appreciates at least. They'd kept putting her in mermaid gowns during her tour, and she'd wanted to claw at the fabric.) No shoes, so she is barefoot.

Her escorts appear once more and Annie is led through the empty hallways. The building is silent, no sign of what's happening in the basement. She is taken to what was intended to the be the dining hall, and there is Snow, calmly eating breakfast. 

“Join me, won't you?” he says, gesturing toward the empty chair beside him, a plate already full in front of it. She stares. She tries to see the trick in this, the trap. She doesn't want to be in the same room as this man, but she hasn't eaten in days and she has no choice. She sinks down into the chair and stares at the eggs. She can't bring herself to eat. (The withered Career in her reminds her that she should take this opportunity, that she may need this strength.) 

Snow continues eating as if she isn't there, five minutes passing, and then ten, before he acknowledges her again.

“Do you have anything you wish to tell me, Miss Cresta?” Snow asks calmly.

“No,” Annie answers, stalwart. “I don't know anything.” She wonders how many times she will say these words before they become truth. She wonders what will happen to her and Peeta and Johanna when they become truth. How much further can the three of them go? (Where are Katniss and Finnick?) 

Snow wipes his mouth on his napkin (blots of red bloom on the fabric), and then he folds it and places it on the table.

“I believe you,” Snow answers neatly. Annie stills. 

“Do you know what the best part of having you here is?” he asks. (That maniac glint is in his eye again. She wonders how many people have seen this, how many people pretend it isn't there. But it glitters so oppressively every time he crowns a new victor.) Annie shakes her head, a minute gesture.

“I don't _have_ to do anything to you,” Snow answers, smiling. “And somewhere out there, Finnick is destroying himself over whatever he thinks _might_ be happening. I could never accomplish all of these things and, yet, he will never forgive himself for any of them, even though they never happened.”

Annie's hands don't shake anymore. She presses her fingertips to the underside of the table, just where the fork has been left for her. She knows Finnick. And she knows there's a grain of truth to what Snow is saying. (Isn't that why he's always so dangerous? There's an _element_ of truth to everything he says, so you believe the whole message.)

“I love him,” Annie says unflinchingly. “And he loves me. And _nothing_ you ever do to either one of us will ever change that.”

Snow's smile goes lean and sharp. (Her heart jumps at the sight of it, because it's not the reaction she expected.)

“You shouldn't challenge me on that, Miss Cresta,” he says quietly. “And I believe you've always misconstrued that I didn't want you and Mr. Odair to be together.” 

“What?” Annie asks before she can stop herself. That is the first thing that Snow has said that has truly surprised her. There had been so many rules put into place to keep her and Finnick in line. They couldn't ever be public about their relationship, no marriage, no kids. Just this below-the-grid relationship that couldn't interfere with what Finnick was doing in the Capitol. Annie had always assumed that Snow had seen her as some kind of distraction or threat to Finnick; how could it be anything else?

“You do know he tried to kill himself twice the year you were Reaped?” Snow asks. “He thought he could make it look like an accident, but I've been around victors long enough to see through their charades.”

Annie hadn't known this. Her first instinct is still to argue, to call him a liar. But there is a seed of doubt in her mind; Finnick talks so rarely about the time after his victory and before he met her. Could it be true?

Snow leans in.

“You ensured he wouldn't do that again,” Snow says, smile growing. “Enough hope to keep him going, to keep him trapped. I could have never planned something as perfect as that. Don't you see?”

Annie's throat feels too tight. Is that true? Is it her fault that Finnick has been trapped underneath Snow's thumb for all these years? Would it have been better for him to have gotten away from it all, to have escaped into the release of death? She can't say anything. The words are clenched inside of her.

“It's a good deal, don't you think?” Snow leers. “You benefit from everything I've taught him, after all. Every time he _pleases_ you, it's because of what I made him.”

Tears brim in Annie's eyes, and she doesn't know if it's anger or sorrow, but probably both. _She's not a client_ , she wants to say again, but she can't. She would love Finnick all the same, even if they never touched, because of _who he is_. The way he watches sunrises on the beach, and the way he smiles at her, and the way he loves her fiercely no matter if she's laughing or crying or lost.

“Do you wake up every morning and wish for my death?” Snow says, dropping his voice even lower, conspiratorial. “I can tell you--”

“No,” Annie says suddenly, abruptly. She interrupts him, because it's that sentence that reminds her, brightly, that all he ever wants to do is make them feel alone. That's when they're vulnerable. He _wants_ her to be scared to love to Finnick, and wants Finnick to be scared to love her. 

“I wish, every day, for _men_ like you to never have power again,” Annie answers, her voice quiet but unwavering. (She catches him off balance with her answer, just for a second. He tries to hide it, but he sits back too quickly.) The guards step in, grab at her arms and lift her out of her seat. She twists in between them.

“I love him!” Annie shouts back at Snow. She doesn't try to stop the guards from moving her, because she can't, but she makes her voice heard all the same. “I love him, and he loves me, and as long as I'm alive, I'll make sure he knows he's loved!” 

She is frogmarched back into the basement, where Johanna and Peeta are silent. The door is locked behind her, but there's still a little fire lit inside of her, burning intensely. 

…

The power goes out, and for the first time, the projector is not on. 

…

When she wakes up, the world looks different. The roof above her is all metal and gleaming, not the white-washed ceiling of her cell. Her heart hammers, because she doesn't know where she is and she doesn't know where she's going. She twists about, sees Peeta on one side of her and Johanna on the other, both asleep. Her heart stops at the sight of both of them. She's seen glimpses of them, of course, but it's nothing compared to actually _seeing_ them: Peeta's cheeks gaunt, hollows underneath his eyes. Johanna's bare head looks so vulnerable, her collarbones jutting underneath her skin. Annie wants to wrap her in a blanket and hold her. 

“Miss Cresta,” someone says – a voice that is deep and calm, but the use of _Miss Cresta_ scares her all the same and she wants to say, _Annie. Annie, please_.

“I'm Boggs,” the man continues, still calm. “We're taking you into District 13. You'll be safe there.”

“Finnick?” Annie asks, the first word she can get out – the only one that matters. 

“He's waiting for you,” Boggs reassures her. “He's fine.” 

Tears stream down Annie's face. There's nothing she can do to stop them. Boggs remains close, but leaves her be. The rest of the ride passes in a blur. Boggs escorts her down first and she's taken into some kind of medical area. There's a flurry of motion all around her – doctors and nurses asking her questions, but most of them heading toward Johanna and Peeta. She can barely answer questions. She's overwhelmed and tired, and all she knows is that she was promised that Finnick would be waiting for her here. 

“Let's get you out of this dress, shall we?” one of the nurses asks warmly. Annie looks down at herself, realizing she is still wearing the Capitol dress that Snow had put her in. She shudders at the sight of it and nods. She holds her hair out of the way as the nurse begins to unzip it, another one holding a sheet in front of her to give her some modesty. (No one is paying attention to her right now though.) 

She looks up and suddenly, there he is. The whole world stops. After all of these weeks of wondering if she was ever going to see him again, believing she would watch him die in the Quell and then being taunted by him while she was in the Capitol, there Finnick Odair is again. Flesh and blood and beauty and half of her life. He's looking about the room with an obvious sort of desperation.

(Oh, her love. She wonders what he's heard of her, what he's seen of her, but he knows Snow hit on the truth in some regard: whatever Finnick has imagined of her has torn him. But they're done with these things now. They're together.)

“Finnick!” she cries, starts moving, starts running. She wraps the sheet, just the sheet, around her body, and it flaps wildly, but she doesn't care. His eyes zero in on her and she can see his relief. His lips form her name once before he manages to actually say it. He moves toward her as well then, and they meet. He wraps his arms around her waist, keeping the sheet in place in the process. She throws one arm around his shoulders, the other pressed to the side of his face. (He loses his balance and they go down, sliding together, but still touching, because nothing else matters as long as that is true.)

She kisses his forehead once and then looks down at him. (He is hollowed in so many ways that she suspects others cannot see. There's something haunted and hunted in his gaze, but she will chase that away. And yet, the sight of him is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen.)

“You're safe,” he keeps saying, and she suspects he's convincing himself of that. She runs her hand down the side of his face. They kiss. 

(And she thinks, with every part of her self, _I will love this man for the rest of my life_.)


End file.
